Google deletes half-a-dozen music blogs for DMCA violations

In what is being referred to as the Musicblogocide of 2010, Google has deleted at least half a dozen popular music blogs that they claim violated copyright law which were hosted on Google’s Blogger and Blogspot services.

The blogs were unceremoniously deleted with no warning earlier this week. Afterwards, site masters received this explanatory note from Google: “We’d like to inform you that we’ve received another complaint regarding your blog. Upon review of your account, we’ve noted that your blog has repeatedly violated Blogger’s Terms of Service … [and] we’ve been forced to remove your blog. Thank you for your understanding.”

Now, Blogspot is certainly rife with numerous music blogs that post free to download MP3s. There’s entire clients out there, such as Peel, which are dedicated to making it easy to listen to the songs posted on them.

Google seems to be taking music piracy on Blogspot seriously… but the problem is that music industry companies often encourage music bloggers to post new MP3s from their label. One blogger whose Blogspot account was shut down in the Musicblogocide cited four separate occasions in which these same labels then filed copyright violations against him for songs he was legally entitled to post.

Google’s response to the criticism was problematic. “”When we receive multiple DMCA complaints about the same blog, and have no indication that the offending content is being used in an authorised manner, we will remove the blog. [If] this is the result of miscommunication by staff at the record label, or confusion over which MP3s are ‘official’ … it is imperative that you file a DMCA counter-claim so we know you have the right to the music in question.”

The only problem is that DMCA complaints are often made without actually specifying what the presumed violation is… so there’s no way for music bloggers to defend themselves against the chargers.

It’s a sticky problem. Google can’t be soft on music piracy, but they also have no way of separating valid music piracy complaints from frivolous ones. At the end of the day, though, its music blog owners who should take away the biggest lesson: if you’re running a site that posts MP3 files to the Internet, you should probably consider your own hosting.